New red flag jeopardy "doesn't change" F2 qualifying mindset

F2 and F3 have introduced new rules over the winter, whereby any driver that directly causes a red flag in qualifying will be stripped of their fastest time in the session.

This is already used in other championships including IndyCar but is not yet seen in F1, with today’s World Motor Sport Council update to the top tier’s regulations confirming this.

Although it is not often that this rule would be called into effect, it could dramatically change the results. Using F1 examples, Sergio Perez would have been stripped of pole position at the 2022 Monaco Grand Prix after causing a stoppage, with Charles Leclerc faring likewise a year earlier.

Despite the added jeopardy, DAMS driver Jak Crawford said: “On my side, it doesn’t change anything at all. If you have a spin in qualifying, your thought process in the moment is that you’re going to be last anyway, so I don’t think it changes too much.

“Obviously, it will change results. I can think of a couple of times last year where there were some red flags at the end of sessions and drivers got away with it.

“But at the end of the day, you don’t really think about it. Touch wood, the chance of actually crashing [in qualifying] is low. It’s not something you should think about.”

Pepe Martí, Campos

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Zane Maloney, who will race this year for Rodin, added: “As a driver, you don’t think about that because then you will drive two tenths slower to not have a risk of crashing. So we’ll be pushing flat out, for sure.

“One thing it does help, which hasn’t happened in recent years but, in the past, maybe a driver on pole stopped on track or was spinning to cause a red flag. That is now gone.

“But from our side, as drivers – to be honest, up until yesterday, I didn’t even know that was a rule change. I’ll just be pushing as hard as I can.”

While the rule has been widely welcomed, ART team principal Sebastien Philippe questioned: “I don’t know why they don’t implement it also in F1, to be honest.

“Maybe because they have fewer red flags and maybe we are trying something to try to avoid having that many red flags, but I’m not sure it would change a lot.”

One school of thought is that F1 could seek to implement the rule in the future, but is looking to see how it can be implemented in live tests, once again using the junior categories as a proving ground.

Campos team principal Adrian Campos said: “I think that, as some other times in the past, when you want to implement something new, until you try it, you don’t know if it’s positive or not,” he said.

“So I guess that this is something that we will be implementing before them. If it’s a rule that is successful and makes everything even more fair, probably they will think about implementing it also.”